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(1973). A COMMENT ON THE WHITE PAPER. The Slow Learning Child: Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 170-172.

I Have to beg the indulgence of the Society to some minute details of anatomy, for the sake of those deductions which can be attained by no other means: and that a zeal for its cultivation may be preserved among us. There is an obvious practical benefit derived from anatomy, but the public do not comprehend its importance as a science. It is to the Royal Society that those who prosecute this science must look for countenance in their slow and painful investigations. Nine years ago, at the request of our late President, I submitted to the Society a paper on the Nervous System; in which I arranged the nerves strictly according to the anatomy, and illustrated the principles of the arrangement, by exhibiting the different functions of the Nerves of the Face. On presenting a second paper on the same part of the nervous system after so considerable a lapse of time, there will be some novelty both in the facts and in the illustrations; yet I have more gratification in showing that after the most minute inquiries in different countries, my positions drawn from the anatomy have been admitted, and my reasoning on the experiments, with one exception, found to be correct. Confident in the accuracy of my deductions from the anatomy of the fifth nerve, I had attributed to one of its branches a function which belongs to another branch of the same nerve. The subject will form a part of the present paper.

Summary.-Willner's (1971) findings leave it uncertain whether or not schizophrenics' difficulty on the Willner Instance Similarities Test in fact represents an abstraction deficit. His data regarding the association-foil hypothesis are incorrectly analyzed but, when reanalyzed, still contradict the association-foil hypothesis. These results are inconsistent with those of a number of ocher studies. It is the present writer's hope that Willner's (1971) work on similarities tasks will receive the considerable attention it deserves. Ody the weaknesses of a potentially influential paper deserve comment. It is in chis spirit that the following brief criticisms are offered. Willner (clinical Experiments I to IV) presented data indicating that schizophrenics did more poorly on a multiple-choice similarities test than on a freeresponse similarities task; psychiatric controls showed no difference between the two. Willner explained these results in terms of the fact that many free-response similarities items can often be sohed by giving a free associate of one or both of the words in the stimulus pair. Schizophrenics, being able to do this, can perform in an ostensibly satisfactory way whether or not they have a defective ability to

la describing the relative sizes of unequal pupils in the diseases of the central organ of the nervous system (as in incomplete general paralysis) most observers make special mention of the dilated pupil, and, under precisely similar essential conditions, we more frequently find one pupil characterised as being larger than the other, than the converse. Were there no prejudice at the bottom of this custom, there might be nothing to advance against it; but I believe that the views on which it is founded, are, more or less, conjectural. It is apparently assumed, in the first place, that inequality of the pupils is always caused by lesion of one iris only; that dilatation of the pupil is more truly and more frequently a morbid condition, than contraction; and, finally, that dilatation is always dependent on relaxation, resulting from paralysis. The iris, with the dilatated pupil is, thus, more often pointed out as being affected, and that with paralysis, than the one in which the pupil is contracted; and we find, moreover, that it is quite usual to adduce, not perhaps, mere inequality, but dilatation of the pupils generally, as an absolute sign and example of paralysis of single muscles.

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It is argued that when normal humans make reaching movements, they move their limbs from a kinaesthetically appreciated starting position. There is a considerable amount of evidence, however, to support the contention that this ‘felt position’ of the limb is highly labile, notwithstanding the apparently contradictory evidence for the existence of receptors which directly determine joint angle. It is proposed that the lability of ‘felt’ position sense in limbs is a transient emergency response of the human localizing system. It is suggested that such a response enables adequate localization to occur subsequent to an error of localization being made when none was intended. (This does not exclude the possibility of lability being associated with other conditions.) Lability is also shown to be a factor in an individual's appreciation of direction of gaze, thus simple experimental protocols can lead to visual misperception of the direction of distal objects. The evidence supports the idea that the visual control system is reset by means of cross modal checking, namely seeing limb extremities to be where they are felt to be. There is also evidence which indicates that kinaesthesis can be altered and stabilized by using visual or auditory position information. This circularity, that vision can modify kinaesthesis and that kinaesthesis can modify apparent direction of gaze, leads to a problem as to the nature of the fixed referent for the human localization system.

SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Publisher Summary The theory of vocational choice suggests a number of research problems. The value of the concept of a developmental hierarchy appears amenable to study and extension through the use of coded interest inventories. The determination of level of choice might be explored through the use of intelligence, status, and self-concept measures, to define the relationships among these variables and the integrative value of the concept, self-evaluation. Simple occupational knowledge tests might be devised to explore the relationships hypothesized in the theory concerning the amount and selective perception of occupational information as well as the correlations between developmental and level hierarchies, and occupational information. The proposed occupational environment classification might be examined and clarified by reviewing the evidence for a sample of typical occupations for each orientation and at each level, and by the administration of appropriate assessment devices. Studies of the interaction of the key variables in the theory might be attempted by using the available definitions.

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a variety of contextual setting conditions that can qualify the momentary efficacy and even the direction of effects of a (focal) stimulus in evoking, cueing, or reinforcing behavior. Contextual factors are classified according to their temporal relation to focal stimulus functioning. However, it is noted that this gross classification serves merely as a preliminary vehicle for listing the diverse phenomena that may operate to qualify stimulus efficacy. The concurrent factors form the ground for a stimulus figure, a standard or anchor stimulus, the source of reinforcing stimuli, and ecological factors that may facilitate or constrain responding. The effect on stimulus efficacy of setting conditions that operate concurrently with the focal stimulus may be illustrated by research examples from several different areas of psychology. In paired-associate learning, change of background color has been found to decrease the recall of syllables. In psychophysics, the concurrent presence of an anchor stimulus will characteristically affect the judgments of stimulus attributes.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes a few strategies for the first two years of language learning. Studies of children's texts and of such other performances as comprehension and imitation have given some basis for testing plausible generalizations about what is necessary for language processing in its early stages. The prerequisites to language are environmental circumstances, cognitive development, and children's information storage. On the basis of these considerations, the basic acquisition of regularities of order and inflection, the fundamental grammatical features found in the early performances of children, can be examined. There are three categories of prerequisites to language learning, the first consisting of what the environment must provide, the others the knowledge that language refers to, and the processing skills that the child brings to the learning task. At the onset of grammar in children, while surface markers of simple structure may facilitate the discovery of processing heuristics, they are not absolutely necessary. The abstracting process that allows children to discover formal similarities, presumably from distributional features, is at least as early in development as the appearance of the auxiliary system in English.

Publisher Summary Many of the schemes for classifying responses with respect to their amenability to operant conditioning are inadequate. This chapter highlights two requirements for a satisfactory scheme. The first requirement is to determine whether a difference between responses in amenability to operant conditioning is produced by important differences in response properties rather than by some theoretically trivial variable. The second requirement is to determine the identifying features of classes of responses that differ in amenability to operant control. Research on system constraints helps to describe and classify responses with respect to their amenability to operant conditioning. Bar pressing seemed to be less constrained than drinking water in the present situation. Also, bar pressing, the less constrained response has been accompanied by dorsal hippocampal theta waves, but drinking, the more constrained response, was not.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses some hypotheses about the relationships between early experience and attitudes, abilities, interests, and other personality factors that affect the ultimate vocational selection of the individual. Some hypotheses with regard to personality variables are expressed in behavior are considered. Gross hereditary differences in such things as specific sensory capacities and the plasticity and complexity of the central nervous system must affect behavior, but beyond these it is uncertain how far specifically genetic elements are primary factors. The hereditary bases for intelligence, special abilities, interests, attitudes, and other personality variables seem to be non-specific. The pattern of development of special abilities is determined by the directions in which psychic energy comes to be expended involuntarily. These directions are determined by the patterning of early satisfactions and frustrations. The intensity of the unconscious needs, as well as their organization, is the major determinant of the degree of motivation as expressed in accomplishment.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews experimental methods and findings in the study of short-term retention and incidental learning. There are important continuities between the theoretical and methodological problems in these two areas. Both types of studies are concerned with basic capacities and dispositions that the learner brings to the experimental situation and that determine the initial reception and immediate storage of information. Such experiments are not primarily designed to investigate the laws governing the integration of responses and the growth of associative strength. Rather, they are concerned with a detailed analysis of some of the conditions that limit and bias the subject's (S's) responses in a learning situation. The extended practice takes its departure from these initial dispositions of the learner. In the conventional rote-learning experiment, exposures and tests follow each other in a fixed order within successive trials. When a single presentation of the learning materials is followed without delay by a test of performance, the measures of retention define the amount of immediate memory.

Publisher Summary This chapter presents arguments for a developmental approach for childhood socialization. The contributions of Richard Walters have brought one to the point from which such studies can begin. His work will remain as a superb example of the process-oriented research that is needed to give some idea to understand the role played by imitation in childhood socialization. The problems of first imitations, the production of generalized imitation, and the role of imitation in the socialization of the child have not fully been understood. For this purpose, one needs sophisticated analyses of the modeling problem focusing on a wide variety of temperamental and cognitive vicissitudes as these interact with the contingencies of exposure to models in determining children's tendencies to imitate. Such research will facilitate accounting for some of the problems, for example, the emergence of first imitations), but it should also increase the practical usefulness of the knowledge concerning imitation with respect to child rearing, childhood education, and psychotherapy with children. The case to be made for developmental research on imitation is not a theoretical issue but a question of values.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses social and informational aspects to cognitive and representational development. On any occasion, performance is a selection from a repertoire of behaviors. Age and experience can expand or constrict the repertoire, although expansion is the usual case during childhood. Age and experience also alter the sense of the right behavior for the right occasion. A good match can be difficult to achieve if it calls for an unknown rule or for juggling more rules and conditions than an individual can manage. A good match can also be difficult to achieve when some particular behaviors are given the status of rituals; they can be used indiscriminately, without regard for the particular occasion, or they can be called right and wrong in a highly restrictive way. In a Brunswickian sense, the match is made difficult in one case by a very high probability that the behavior selected can be the same for every occasion and, in the other case, by a very low probability that performance can be exactly on target.

Dr. G. Everett, Abbott Labs., North Chicago: To continue playing the monoamine game, I would like to point out a couple of things in regard to dopamine, which we might consider the Cinderella of the biogenic amines. And I think we have to be careful not to try to put norepinephrine in the dopamine shoes. There certainly is as Dr. Kety has indicated in presentation the problem of which one of the biogenic amines may be playing the most important role in the phenomena of the behavioral arousal, aggressive behavior and other behavioral activations which have not been completely resolved. But there is certainly a considerable amount of evidence that dopamine may turn out to be the alerting substance. And norepinephrine may actually have a sedative action which certainly can be shown by giving the appropriate precursors which results in a sedative state rather than an alert state.

Robert E. Bowman, Psychology Department University of Wisconsin, Madison: I have two comments to make on Professor Hyden’s work. First, it is gratifying to note that in two recent experiments he has included appropriate behavioral control groups to establish some of the critical variables associated with the biochemical differences he observes. In both of these experiments, the biochemical changes appear not to be associated with learning per se. One of these studies is the sensory conditioning research described by Professor Hyden, in which the CS stimulation alone appeared to be sufficient to produce the biochemical effect. The second study—which Professor Hyden did not mention in his presentation—was one which he did on planaria in collaboration with Dr. E. Roy John (Hyden et al., 1969). In that study, planaria which were classically conditioned to light-cathodal shock pairings exhibited changes in RNA base ratios when compared to non-conditioned controls. However, many of the same RNA changes were also seen in pseudo-conditioned controls and were thus not clearly related to learning. These studies illustrate the behavioral care necessary in order to associate biochemical changes with learning itself, and raise the possibility that in other studies reported by Hyden, the observed biochemistry may not be due specifically to learning or memory consolidation. Both Hyden’s wire climbing studies (Hyden and Egyhazi, 1962) and his handedness reversal studies (Hyden and Egyhazi, 1964) need to be reinvestigated in this respect with more adequate control groups.

After recapitulating the contents of his former paper, the author cites cases which have occurred since its publication, in support of his doctrine, first, that the sensibility of the head and face depends on the fifth pair of nerves ; secondly, that the muscular branches of that pair are subservient to mastication; and, thirdly, that the portio dura of the seventh pair controls those motions of the parts of the face, whether voluntary or involuntary, which are connected with respiration. Instances are given of lesions of the portio dura, from ac­cident or from disease, followed by paralysis of the muscles on the same side of the face, while the sensibility remained. On the other hand, cases are related of injury to the fifth pair, being attended with loss of sensibility in all the parts receiving branches from the injured nerve, while the power of motion continued unimpaired. In one case of this description, where one half of the under lip had become insensible, on a tumbler being applied to the mouth, the patient imagined it was a broken glass that he touched. A similar delusion was experienced by another patient, in whom the half of the upper lip had been deprived of sensation by an injury to the sub-orbital branch on the same side. From these facts the author deduces the absurdity of the practice of cutting the portio dura for the relief of tic douleureux. He next enters into an anatomical description of the course of that division of the fifth pair of nerves, which is unconnected with the Gasserian ganglion, and passes under it, and which he considers as the motor or manducatory portion of the fifth, being distributed to the temporal, masseter, pterygoid, and buccinator muscles; some branches of it supplying the muscles of the lips, and also the mylo-hyoideus and anterior belly of the digastricus, the action of which is to depress the jaw.

Greenberg's recent study and conclusion that “it is the presence of the metronome rather than the instructions to pace one's speech with it that is the important factor” are questioned on methodological grounds. The use of a single metronome rate renders the study invalid as a test of the servo model of speech control. Individual differences in the preferred metronome rate for rhythmic speaking are marked and must be taken into account if meaningful conclusions are to be drawn from the data.

The three papers represent a diversity of orientation. Each writer, while fully cognizant of the efforts of the other two, has pursued his or her own bent regarding interpretation of the task, the route by which the goal should be attained, and the final product. This diversity permitted each contributor to bring the strengths of his discipline, its mode of inquiry, and its research literature to bear on the topic even if this made the final task of integration of the three viewpoints more difficult. However, the three papers provide an unexpected but fortunate unanimity of perspective which suggests that benefits may accrue from interdisciplinary efforts of this kind other than those associated with convergence on a common problem. Before elaborating on the general points of agreement expressed in the three papers, it might be well to discuss briefly the differences which characterize them. The primary objective, it may be remembered, was to identify major models of language, to disclose their inherent assumptions, explicit or implicit, and to review the pertinent literature to determine the extent to which hypotheses derived from the models had been tested. The selection of models

Factor analysis aims to explain observed relations among numerous variables in terms of simpler relations. The simplification may consist of producing a set of classificatory categories, or creating a smaller number of hypothetical variables. Such resolution is so central to all scientific work that we must pause in a moment to ask about the relation of factor analysis to investigatory methods in general. However, it may be said forthwith that its most valuable functions lie in the biological and behavioral sciences, where a great array of phenomena are multiply determined and where the conceptual independent variables are not easily located and agreed upon. For example, in the behavioral sciences, a student of delinquency or mental disorder may have doubts whether there is such a single thing as delinquency or mental disorder and must have an open mind as to where the important causal influences lie in the bewildering array of possibilities. In such a situation he may take a set of variables, each semantically entitled to be called a form of delinquency, and measure each on members of a population and then seek for the functional unities by computing correlation coefficients for each pair of variables over the list of people concerned. Into this correlation matrix-as we designate the square matrix of coefficients shown in Table 1 below-he may also introduce measures of putative causal influences, seeking in the subsequent factor analysis to find those underlying 'hypothetical variables' or factors among them which are of -theoretical importance. Or again a biologist concerned with nutrition might correlate-over many animals, each fed in a different wayvarious signs of health and disease and various ingredients in the food. The vitamins, for example, might historically have been located-perhaps more economically of research time than they were-as factors each with a certain pattern of deficiency signs and of relative presence in various foods.

A Learning Center in which 60 students studied psychology is described. The style combines in a complementary way behavioral, nondirective psychodynamic and organizational principles. Natural influences over learning, taken from Ss current activity, goals and value systems rather than arbitrary and coercive control are emphasized. The work of the faculty where the student works for reasons natural to his life is to facilitate and support learning rather than to goad it. The most prominent evidence of S’s work is a journal—distinguished from a term paper because it is an unedited product written as the student learns.

This article is essentially a position paper written in response to S. Alan Cohen's article on visual perception and reading published in last month's JOURNAL. Problems in offering more efficient prescriptions for teaching reading are discussed.